Latest / The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education / Changing Perspectives: Diversity, Hybrid Homeschooling & Banned Books with Chris Linder (Homeschool Remix)

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Changing Perspectives: Diversity, Hybrid Homeschooling & Banned Books with Chris Linder (Homeschool Remix) · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

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  There was always supplemental home learning going on, going
• 0:04
  back generations. This and maybe Gen.
• 0:07
  X are the first generation that really puts 100% of the
• 0:11
  responsibility of teaching kids in the hands of the state, which
• 0:16
  I think is a mistake. But if you look at the way our
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  grandparents were and our great grandparents, they, they all,
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  you know, learned a little bit at home, learned a little bit at
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  school. And that's how that's how
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  culture gets passed down. Hello everybody, welcome to
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  another episode of the big Home Med conversations.
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  You are listening to Kelly Rick. I'm a home Med mum of two,
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  founder of Off roading motherhood and a qualified
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  mindset coach. I work with families who are
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  transitioning from mainstream schooling into home education
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  and I'm joined by my lovely Co host Ashley Venario.
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  So she's a fellow home Med mum of three and a former primary
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  teacher. We created the Big Home Med
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  Conversations podcast with what began as honest, heartfelt talks
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  around her coffee table and has grown into a space where
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  hundreds of listeners now TuneIn real, unfiltered conversations
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  about mindset, behaviour, challenges, educational
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  philosophies and the often very emotional journey of alternative
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  education. So we aim to cut through the
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  noise and focus on what really matters to us as home educating
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  families. So offering you some clarity,
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  some confidence and community in every episode.
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  As part of our Changing Perspective series, we're joined
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  this week by Chris Linda. He's a fantastic guy who lives
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  over in Atlanta and essentially I met him when I was reaching
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  out to people asking them to offer me some insight into the
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  experiences of home educators from sort of various diverse
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  backgrounds. He is working in Atlanta to
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  support diverse families who are really keen to home educate and
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  support their children more outside of their schooling.
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  So whether that's in conjunction with school as a kind of a more
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  flexi schooling kind of basis a bit in a bit out or as home
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  educating families or home schooling families as it is
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  referred to in the US. And essentially he he's joining
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  us today to discuss the really quite important conversations
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  around othering in terms of race and recognising that there are
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  challenges that are being faced by different communities,
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  diverse communities who obviously would maybe want to
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  home educate their children, but would experience more prejudice
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  in doing so. We're experiencing so much
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  whitewashing in education. We're experiencing banned books
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  and libraries pre emptively removing books from shelves to
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  kind of thinking that maybe one day they'll be considered a bit
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  too out there in terms of opinions.
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  We're seeing young people from all backgrounds having a limited
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  opportunity to understand the individuals that have influenced
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  amazing things in our human backgrounds and all of the
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  different people who play a part in making it what it is today.
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  And ultimately what this can do is ensure that our children are
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  raised with set opinions of people from different
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  backgrounds, people from different ethnicities or
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  religions. And ultimately stop them from
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  having the critical thinking skills that they need to be able
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  to go out into the world and to make a difference and have some
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  compassion and empathy for all individuals and to respect the
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  opinions of all individuals as well.
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  Now, one of the things that I've felt myself feeling very
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  passionate about in recent months is just ensuring that my
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  children do not grow up in a bubble.
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  And whilst our community is reasonably diverse with lots of
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  people from various different backgrounds, religions,
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  etcetera. The difficulty I've found is in
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  actually making sure that they really, actually understand that
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  those those people have different beliefs and different
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  religions and different ideas. They eat different foods, they
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  have come from different places, speak different languages and
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  that these amazing things about them are things that we should
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  be curious about and, and asking questions about and getting to
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  know even more. And sometimes that can be really
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  tricky to ensure that our children do get that really
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  diverse understanding and, and to build that curiosity about
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  their fellow fellow man. So what I really want to offer
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  you guys as part of this series and what me and Ashley have
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  worked really hard to do is to bring you a series of
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  conversations with people from so many different backgrounds
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  who will hopefully help you to bridge these conversations with
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  your kids. So without any further ado,
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  let's get stuck in. This is the interview that we've
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  just finished with Chris and we hope that you find it as eye
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  opening as we did. Chris, I'm so excited to have
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  you on today. We have been chatting a little
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  bit in advance of this conversation and I had such a
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  great time with Chris. Honestly, I think we ended up
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  chatting for like 2 hours. The first time we spoke didn't
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  really it went on forever and we were like, I really shouldn't
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  let you get on with your life. What is this poor guy is is over
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  in America. So he is based in Atlanta and he
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  is an an educator. He's he understands technology.
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  He's done an awful lot of work in those both of those sectors
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  and essentially now works with diverse families to help them
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  kind of explore kind of techniques solutions for full or
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  part time home home schooling. As obviously in America, it's
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  referred to as homeschooling. In the UK, we call it home
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  education. In this conversation, we mean
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  the best same thing. So please don't jump down our
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  necks about it. So give us a break on this one,
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  people. And essentially what we're going
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  to chat to Chris about today is really the the challenges that
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  diverse families are facing when trying to embrace home
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  education. How we as as a community need to
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  be really conscious of ensuring that our education is really,
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  really diverse as well and that we are taking in lots of
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  different perspectives. So I'm really excited about
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  today's chat. We've already had a really good
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  chat about this already, so I know it's going to be great.
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  But tell us a bit more about you, Chris.
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  How have you ended up kind of falling into education and
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  loving, loving doing stuff like that?
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  What's what's been the draw for you?
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  Well, my, my background is, is really varied.
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  I started out in elementary school.
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  I went to a small charter school where we worked individually at
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  our own pace in little booklets and little cubicles.
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  So I really didn't see the inside of a traditional
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  classroom until I went to middle school and high school.
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  So I really approached education as a younger kid from this
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  independent standpoint. And then when I went on to high
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  school, I had great teachers who really taught me how to express
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  myself through writing, how to think critically.
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  And so I was well prepared when I went into college.
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  And I actually went into radio broadcasting because my high
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  school had a radio station. So I became ADJ for a while.
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  Yeah. I I thought that that was what I
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  wanted to be for the rest of my life.
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  But I soon realized there's not really much money in that.
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  So I, I was on the air in my mid 20s and I got a book.
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  I was really bored. I had this wanderlust and I
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  thought, well, what, what can I do to like leave the country
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  and, and still make some money and then, you know, decide what
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  I want to do when I come back. I got a book called Work Your
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  Way around the World and describe all the jobs you can do
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  if you, you know, just leave the confines of your country and,
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  and go off to Asia and teach English or go off to South
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  America and pick fruit. And I was like, well, I don't
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  really want to work in the field because I'm lazy and, but I can
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  speak. So maybe I'll go to I, I moved
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  to South Korea and I taught English and a Hagwan, a little
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  language institute. And it more than anything that
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  really excited me about, about education.
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  That really got me excited about actually dealing with students
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  at a one-on-one level. These are students who were in
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  high school and college, but before their their classes
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  during the day, they would come to our language institution and,
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  and learn English. And then they would come back
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  sometimes at 7:00 or 8:00 at night and take more classes.
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  And, and they were really invested in learning English
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  because obviously it's a lingua franca.
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  It's a, you know, something that would help them in their careers
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  in the future, but also because they wanted to be able to learn
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  the learn the slang and the idioms from from Hollywood
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  movies that were, you know, that were becoming big over there.
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  So, but when I came back to the states, I had that teaching bug.
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  So I got my degree in instructional technology.
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  And even though I would back into radio, I still kind of
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  substitute taught school in my spare time.
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  And eventually I actually became a full time high school teacher.
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  I, I married my wife who was an elementary school teacher and
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  she started writing books about, about the Common Core, the
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  standards that were that were being implemented at the time
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  and other professional development books for teachers.
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  So it kind of I realized after a couple of years of teaching high
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  school world literature that I was a better, I was a better
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  teacher than I was a babysitter like, which meant that classroom
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  management was not was not a skill that I had really, really
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  picked up on. So it was a lot easier to, I
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  guess, teach high schoolers in Korea that it was to teach high
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  schoolers in Atlanta. So, so I got out of teaching,
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  got back into basically back into media, back into tech and
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  work on worked on IT systems and, and things like that.
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  And long story even longer, I eventually my wife passed away.
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  And sorry to hear that after, after a few years after COVID, I
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  was looking at ways of trying to fill in the gaps between what my
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  what my children weren't getting in school.
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  And especially when COVID hit, there was a lot of remote
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  learning. And I, we have two kids, one
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  kind of thrived in learning at home and one needed that
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  classroom interaction. So I realized that there's no
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  one-size-fits-all magic bullet for, for parents who are trying
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  to teach their kids at home or trying to teach their kids
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  through traditional schooling. So I, I realized that there were
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  a lot of things that my kids weren't getting in school, but
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  maybe I didn't have all the where even as a teacher, I
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  didn't have all the the wherewithals to teach them full
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  time through home learning. So I came, I didn't really
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  invent it, but I, I tried to work out a strategy to where you
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  could use hybrid homeschooling to, to fill in those gaps.
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  Yeah, to provide a well-rounded opportunity for them.
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  So they've got other other perspectives and ideas.
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  Yeah, exactly, Exactly. Yeah.
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  So, yeah, diversity is a, is a very strong proponent because I
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  work with a lot of families from marginalized communities, Black,
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  brown, Indigenous people. It's, it's really all about
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  representation and diversity in both the, the subject and topics
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  that that they're studying and in the families themselves.
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  And, and that's something that's not being really, really
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  addressed in public schools now. In fact, it's it's less so now
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  than it was even 10 years ago. Yeah, I think that's, that's a
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  bit, a bit scary as well that kind of concept that it's
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  becoming lesser and I think we can probably assume who may be
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  somewhat responsible for that. We can get on to the politics
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  bashing later. But I, I suspect that like what
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  can be really difficult, especially as you like in the
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  home education community. So in the UK, typically the
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  concept of doing a bit of both is, is quite common.
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  I think most families will have the children in school and we'll
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  be sending them off to extracurriculars.
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  We'll be paying for extra for tutors or online classes and
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  things around it. Like there's an awful lot of
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  that going on. But there is also then an awful
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  lot of people who are starting to look into what's termed as
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  flexi schooling here, where children will be partially in
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  school, partially out of school. So like a couple of days a week
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  in, couple of days a week out. The schools are quite resistant
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  to this because obviously they teach a set curriculum and it
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  means that those children are potentially missing things on
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  the days that they're not in. And they're having to try and
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  like bridge that gap somehow and work with the families to make
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  sure they're covering those things on their days that
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  they're not in school, etcetera. But ultimately the, the concept
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  of schooling here is that it, home education is possibly one
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  of the rarest options in the UK for education, but it is growing
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  very fast. And there's an awful lot of
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  people starting to realize that it's a valid option, that it's
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  legal, that it's an opportunity to provide a better,
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  well-rounded perspective on education for our children.
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  Like, for example, I just went through the curriculum for year
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  three that my son's just finished to just sort of see
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  where we're at, to see where what he's ticked off.
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  And we've ticked 95% of the boxes without even trying.
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  And ultimately, I know that beyond that, the subject matter
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  that we have covered, the places we've been, the conversations
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  we've had, the books we've read are way above and beyond the
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  level that would be expected of him at his age.
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  And it gives us an opportunity to really dive into lots of
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  different conversations. However, it does also call into
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  question when you home educate this concept of as an
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  individual, I have got my lived experience, I have got my
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  perspectives, I've got the things I know about to teach
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  about or to tell them about. And I've got my, my own kind of
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  passions and interests that I will obviously naturally lean
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  towards and say, well, they, and that what can end up happening
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  is that in a home educating environment, we tend to get
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  quite focused in on what we know and what we believe.
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  And without an opportunity to really experience other cultures
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  and diverse inputs, we may struggle to actually help our
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  children understand them at all. And this, this is quite scary
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  for me. And it's something that kind of
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  just dawned on me, I guess earlier this year that I was, as
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  they're getting a bit older and I'm able to have slightly more
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  in depth conversations with them.
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  I suppose that's probably why it suddenly comes to the front of
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  my mind. My son's about to turn 9 and I'm
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  very conscious that he's he's coming into his sort of preteen
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  phase. He's going to become an adult in
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  not that long a time at all. And I wanted to make sure that
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  as he does, that he's got a really good perspective and
• 15:16
  understanding of the world around him.
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  And I think that, like you said, that kind of idea that parents
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  need some support to help them understand how they can better
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  support their kids with this from home is is vital.
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  I don't think that any of us have got all the answers.
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  And I'm hoping that, yeah, this this series of victories really
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  going to help them to think. There's actually lots for the
• 15:33
  people out there that they can lean on to get ideas from.
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  So obviously Chris has got, it's called Homeschool Remix, I
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  believe it's called, is the name of your book.
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  Yes, people can grab that. The name of the book and the
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  name of the framework. Yes.
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  So we'll be referencing that in the description as well, guys.
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  So don't worry, you will be able to go to the link and find that
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  if you're interested in learning more about that from Chris as
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  well in that perspective as well beyond it.
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  But yeah, it's, it's such a tricky thing, isn't it, to, to
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  discuss with our children because sometimes we just, we
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  really don't even know where to start.
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  That's the big thing. Parents don't really know, you
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  know, They don't know where to start.
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  They don't feel competent and confident enough in their skills
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  and knowledge to take that step into homeschooling.
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  And there is a stigma attached to homeschooling, especially
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  here in the United States. There's a lot of people who feel
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  that, well, you, you know, you're homeschooling is for the
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  doomsday preppers out in the middle of out in the middle of
• 16:33
  nowhere who want to, you know, are really strongly religious
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  and want to give their kids a religious education and they
• 16:42
  don't trust the government and, and so on.
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  And, and there there is that truth to that, to that
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  stereotype. But also I think that we need to
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  look at, we need to look at a couple of things.
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  We need to look at the education system and the way it's set up
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  and the reasons why it's set up the way it is.
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  A lot of people say, well, the educational system's broken.
• 17:07
  We need to do something to fix it.
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  The educational system isn't broken, at least here in the
• 17:12
  United States. It's actually working exactly as
• 17:16
  it's designed. It was meant to turn out
• 17:21
  moderately educated laborers for a labor force.
• 17:25
  People who could read at a 5th or 6th grade level didn't have
• 17:29
  to worry about critical thinking, people who could just
• 17:31
  follow directions. And it's been that way unchanged
• 17:36
  for, for the most part, unchanged for the last 125
• 17:39
  years. The other thing that people that
• 17:43
  parents especially need to look at is that we have a strong
• 17:49
  tradition of supplemental home learning as, as African
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  Americans, I, I can look at it from this perspective.
• 18:01
  Slaves, it was illegal for, for enslaved people to, to learn
• 18:07
  English, to learn to, to read, to learn, you know, science and
• 18:13
  things like that. So a lot of, in a lot of cases,
• 18:17
  communities had to basically teach their young kids in
• 18:21
  secret. And there was always
• 18:25
  supplemental home learning going on going back generations.
• 18:29
  You're not just depending on like this is this and maybe Gen.
• 18:34
  X are the first generation that really puts 100% of the
• 18:38
  responsibility of teaching kids in the hands of the state, which
• 18:44
  I think is a mistake. But if you look at the way our
• 18:47
  grandparents were and our great grandparents, they, they all,
• 18:52
  you know, learned a little bit at home, learned a little bit at
• 18:55
  school. And that's how that's how
• 18:57
  culture gets passed down. So when parents are looking at
• 19:02
  who's going to teach their kids history about their own culture,
• 19:07
  they really need to look that that responsibility being on on
• 19:11
  themselves. And as far as diversity,
• 19:15
  unfortunately, you know, for whatever reason, we seem to be
• 19:19
  rolling it backwards. There's less diversity in
• 19:22
  education. There's less inclusion in
• 19:25
  education. But I mean, that starts with the
• 19:29
  family. And even though homeschool remix
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  the framework is designed really to benefit kids from diverse
• 19:38
  families and marginalized communities, most it it's
• 19:42
  inclusive, not exclusive. It's not for and this, you know,
• 19:47
  it refers to hybrid homeschooling as a as a whole.
• 19:51
  It's not just for one kind of person. 11 race of people
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  education is the. Concept of active inclusion,
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  isn't it? I think a lot of.
• 20:03
  Social models that are coming forth with trying to recognise
• 20:06
  things like ableism and ageism, et cetera, that all of it really
• 20:09
  comes from a concept of being actively inclusive to all.
• 20:13
  Instead of it being like this is how it looks and you have to try
• 20:17
  and wedge yourself in it somehow and supplement and support
• 20:20
  yourself elsewhere because otherwise it's not going to work
• 20:23
  trying to understand. Yeah, like it's, it is that
• 20:25
  concept of assimilation that I think is just.
• 20:27
  It is starting to wane. I think as people are starting
• 20:30
  to be more conscious and aware, which is exciting and definitely
• 20:35
  bodes well for sort of revolutionary change.
• 20:38
  I think in a lot of communities that we are starting to to be a
• 20:40
  little bit more sceptical and be a bit more aware that we're not
• 20:43
  supposed to all be exactly the same.
• 20:46
  But it's yeah. It's interesting you mentioned
• 20:49
  about the family learning because when I think about my
• 20:51
  mom, she was one of eight children.
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  She was the youngest. And when she talks about how she
• 20:57
  learned to read, she learned to read from her siblings.
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  They naturally would read to her and she would be thinking, how
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  are you spelling the OR like where do you see that on the
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  page? And so when she entered school,
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  she already knew how to read. Other kids in her class didn't.
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  But it was something that just she, when I asked her like, oh,
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  did you like take a phonics program?
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  Or was it a workbook? And she's like, no, we just did
• 21:22
  it as a family. And I just learned because we
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  did it. And then they were quite
• 21:27
  religious growing up. And so she was also attending a
• 21:30
  weekly Sunday school. And that was another component
• 21:33
  that then after that took place and they went to church on
• 21:36
  Sundays, they would all come home and work together as a
• 21:39
  family discussing what they learned, discussing how it
• 21:42
  applies in their household and how they can help to kind of
• 21:46
  bring that message forth to other people.
• 21:48
  And I think unfortunately or fortunately, depending on.
• 21:53
  OK, thanks. She she didn't continue that
• 21:57
  very religious perspective and kind of decided that we would be
• 22:01
  raised to decide for ourselves and not have it kind of pushed
• 22:04
  upon us. And so I didn't have that same
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  experience of like a, a Sunday school and family discussions
• 22:12
  around things growing up. But it, it is interesting
• 22:14
  because I think that really impacted her and certainly
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  brought her faith, which she still has very strongly to this
• 22:19
  day, as a very prominent part of her life and, and who she is.
• 22:24
  So you can kind of see the impact of the family's
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  perspective. It does get to the core of who
• 22:31
  you can be and influence how you grow and decide to move forth in
• 22:36
  the world. Yeah.
• 22:39
  I think it's really important for families to realize that
• 22:42
  education can be a family centered thing as opposed to
• 22:46
  either a student centered thing thing or a institutionalized
• 22:50
  thing. If you if you raise your your
• 22:53
  kid in a family and give give them multiple ways of of getting
• 23:01
  education, whether it's through traditional school every day,
• 23:06
  adding in Sunday school lessons on Sundays, adding in a
• 23:12
  homeschool Co-op meeting on a Saturday, field trips, other
• 23:17
  experiences like that it it should and all the.
• 23:20
  Things. Yeah, exactly.
• 23:21
  Travel. It all comes together to give a
• 23:25
  well-rounded education, and that should be the goal rather than
• 23:30
  simply saying, oh, school happens between 8:00 and 3:30
• 23:34
  and that's where you should learn.
• 23:36
  All of you know your history, facts and your math and your
• 23:39
  STEM and so on. Yeah.
• 23:42
  And I think that kind of concept that school is supposed to
• 23:44
  provide the whole thing as well. I think more and more these
• 23:46
  days, parents are going well. They're just, they're not
• 23:48
  teaching them these functional skills in school.
• 23:50
  They're not teaching them how to sort out their mortgage.
• 23:52
  They're not teaching them how to manage their bank account.
• 23:54
  They're not. They're teaching them how to
• 23:56
  change a tire. And it's just like, yeah, but
• 23:58
  that's up to you. But I'd like to caveat that and
• 24:01
  to defend parents to some degree in the economy as it's been in
• 24:04
  the past, however many years from 20-30 years really, we have
• 24:09
  moved into a situation where almost both parents have to have
• 24:11
  a full time income in order to be able to keep up with the
• 24:13
  basic like requirements. Like if you're lucky enough to
• 24:16
  have an income where one of you is earning enough to to somewhat
• 24:20
  supplement the other so that you've actually got some time at
• 24:22
  home with your kids, then amazing.
• 24:24
  Like I argue constantly internally and it's something
• 24:27
  which I think I'm going to have to campaign for in my lifetime,
• 24:29
  is for the fact that in the UK, children are entitled to an
• 24:32
  education in school. They're entitled to therefore
• 24:34
  £8000 a year to be spent on their education in an
• 24:37
  institution. They're entitled to all exams
• 24:40
  and qualifications that would come with that, paid for by the
• 24:43
  government. But if you choose any other
• 24:44
  path, home education, private education, etcetera, then you
• 24:47
  officially release any of that funding.
• 24:49
  Now that comes to you, you don't get any support.
• 24:51
  And actually as a British citizen, my children deserve
• 24:54
  that money. They deserve those
• 24:55
  opportunities. And frankly, as a parent,
• 24:58
  £16,000 to educate my children would go a heck of a lot further
• 25:02
  than it does in school. I mean, you think 1 teacher in a
• 25:05
  room with 3335 children that we're dealing with these days, 4
• 25:09
  kids pay their salary for the year.
• 25:11
  The rest of it is lost on infrastructure and the rest of
• 25:15
  it, right? And it's just shocking how much
• 25:17
  that money is being wasted and lost.
• 25:19
  And actually schools are desperately needing more money
• 25:21
  that they're actually they need even more because it's just
• 25:23
  everything costs so much more where there's a whole other
• 25:25
  conversation for a different time.
• 25:27
  But like, the quality of education cannot increase.
• 25:29
  Like it can't do more. It's the same here in America
• 25:33
  and it's, it's so sad. And that's, that's kind of why I
• 25:37
  devote so much of my time and energy towards marginalized
• 25:40
  communities because in in so many cases, it's a single parent
• 25:44
  household or it's both parents working.
• 25:47
  They don't have the time, money or energy to devote to full time
• 25:51
  home schooling, but they do realize that they need the
• 25:55
  benefit of homeschooling and that's why hybrid homeschooling
• 25:58
  is so important. But it so many people don't
• 26:01
  realize that here in the states, it differs state by state, but
• 26:05
  some states offer 4000 or $5000 a year to homeschoolers.
• 26:12
  You know, but there's no, there's no infrastructure of, of
• 26:16
  educating parents about homeschooling.
• 26:19
  So a lot of that, you know, they don't even know about that.
• 26:22
  And then on the opposite side of the coin, you have this movement
• 26:25
  towards school choice where they're using taxpayer dollars
• 26:31
  to, to divert towards private charter schools as opposed to
• 26:37
  public schools. And you can get a voucher to, to
• 26:41
  maybe have your kid attend this supposedly better private
• 26:46
  school. What they don't tell you is that
• 26:49
  the private school can decide whether or not to enroll your
• 26:53
  student, your child as a student based on whatever factors they
• 26:58
  come up with. If they don't want to deal with
• 27:01
  with neurodivergent kids or if they don't want to deal with
• 27:05
  LGBTQ or, you know, even if you're just not our type of
• 27:10
  people, you know, they can, they can decide that and, you know,
• 27:16
  yeah. And that.
• 27:17
  Obviously in private schools as well, they have a lot more
• 27:20
  freedoms in terms of choice around curriculum in the Uki
• 27:22
  don't know the same in America, but they don't have to sign the
• 27:24
  same curriculum. So ultimately you are putting
• 27:27
  that your children's education again in the hands of other
• 27:29
  people deciding what you what they think is important for your
• 27:32
  children to know and the messaging and the like
• 27:35
  experience of those teachers. And, and yeah, ultimately as
• 27:38
  well. I think if you've got a child
• 27:39
  who's maybe got a scholarship program, you see this a lot in
• 27:42
  sort of movies and stuff like that.
• 27:43
  They get kids who've got a scholarship program or they've
• 27:45
  managed to get a grant or whatever and they go to a school
• 27:47
  that we, we have a class system in today.
• 27:50
  We have got people who behave how they behave.
• 27:52
  And we do end up with this prejudice going down through
• 27:56
  the, the bullying and the experience of that child in that
• 27:58
  school doesn't mean that it's necessarily very productive for
• 28:00
  them either. So it all becomes like these
• 28:02
  barriers to opportunity and information and what should just
• 28:07
  be like, we should all have access to to these things.
• 28:10
  But I think there's my, my dad always refers to our generation
• 28:12
  as being very entitled that we kind of expect that we're going
• 28:15
  to receive like world class education, world class
• 28:18
  healthcare, that we shouldn't have to pay for these things
• 28:21
  like why should we pay for them and we should just get them.
• 28:22
  And to some degree, I think parents have kind of lost sight
• 28:25
  of the fact that actually, if you want really amazing things,
• 28:29
  then do you, you do have to try and make them happen yourself
• 28:32
  sometimes because ultimately it's not all there for the
• 28:35
  taking. Like I mean unfortunately.
• 28:37
  That's true, but we do dying like we.
• 28:39
  Do pay for them. We do pay for these things.
• 28:41
  We pay our taxes. Yeah, we we do.
• 28:43
  Our We pay so much in. Taxes that we should be living
• 28:46
  in a utopia, but we're not, you know, and yeah, there's the
• 28:50
  responsibility of the parents to say, OK, well, you know, yes,
• 28:53
  we're not we're not living in a perfect world.
• 28:55
  What do I need to do to teach my kids?
• 28:57
  What do I need to do to make sure that my kids.
• 29:00
  You talk about practical life skills.
• 29:02
  I talk about this in in the book homeschool remix.
• 29:05
  My daughter, I was driving her to work one day.
• 29:08
  She was this senior in high school.
• 29:10
  She worked at fast food place Wendy's.
• 29:13
  And she asked me, Dad, what's a mortgage?
• 29:17
  And this is something that I, you know, would have assumed
• 29:20
  that she'd learned in middle school or in high school or
• 29:22
  something, you know, you know, But I had to explain to her what
• 29:26
  a mortgage was. And I realized that they
• 29:28
  weren't. That was one of those one of
• 29:30
  those aha moments that I was like, oh, OK, they're in.
• 29:35
  At least here in America, kids are more prepared to deal with
• 29:39
  an active shooter than they are with how to balance a checkbook
• 29:45
  or. With how to get?
• 29:46
  A home loan, you know, we're not teaching the kids in school the
• 29:51
  things that they need to to learn.
• 29:54
  But ultimately it. It's on the parents.
• 29:58
  The parents have to figure out how to teach them financial
• 30:01
  literacy, how to teach them practical life skills, how to
• 30:04
  teach them cultural history. Yeah.
• 30:07
  And I think that we. We are definitely operating
• 30:09
  within a society that doesn't value family time.
• 30:12
  It doesn't value downtime. It definitely encourages hustle
• 30:17
  culture. It definitely expects parents to
• 30:19
  be working crazy overtime, expects them to be utilizing the
• 30:22
  breakfast clubs and the after school clubs.
• 30:24
  They expects them to be ensuring their children attend school or
• 30:27
  else they won't be successful. They expects them to be put on
• 30:29
  the all these extracurriculars. Like there's an awful lot of
• 30:31
  expectation of parents to somehow parent their children
• 30:34
  whilst also never getting to be with their children and somehow
• 30:37
  figuring. Out a way to to untie their
• 30:40
  children from social media when you know in a lot of cases we
• 30:44
  can't even do it ourselves that's the thing we.
• 30:47
  Can't. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:49
  It's, it's a very complicated world we live in right now.
• 30:52
  And I think that ultimately a lot of children are going to be
• 30:56
  not, I wouldn't say necessarily always suffering for it, but it
• 30:59
  is ultimately that kind of concept of if they aren't being
• 31:02
  given enough grounded opportunity to spend time with
• 31:06
  their caregivers and to learn about the cultures and to to be
• 31:10
  involved in their communities to see how they can be productive
• 31:12
  and contribute to that society. Like there's an awful lot of
• 31:15
  things they're lacking by being kind of shoved into a school
• 31:18
  environment in the UK, They're expected to be there until
• 31:20
  they're 18. Now, honestly, they're leaving
• 31:22
  school as an actual adult adults.
• 31:24
  Like they're now like, OK, now as opposed to go and contribute
• 31:26
  somehow. But you know, most of the time
• 31:28
  they're still expected to just carry on with their education
• 31:30
  and they just don't even know where to begin.
• 31:32
  And I think I started out around the age of 18 going into the
• 31:35
  workplace because I just was very disillusioned with
• 31:37
  education. And I've obviously gone out and
• 31:40
  I've just worked and I've just just cracked on.
• 31:42
  But my brain is one of the things which I feel very worried
• 31:45
  about in our education system is how I got good grades.
• 31:48
  I got, I got really good grades, A's and B's and things at GCSCI
• 31:51
  did OK in my A levels. I went off to work.
• 31:54
  I managed to get a job right away.
• 31:55
  There's no issues with that at all.
• 31:56
  I promoted reasonably quickly. I was always able to keep a job
• 31:59
  and money, et cetera. Things felt good.
• 32:01
  Like I felt like I'd worked really hard through my
• 32:03
  schooling, just going off and being successful in the world.
• 32:06
  However, I was definitely judgmental.
• 32:08
  I was definitely unaware of other people's lived experiences
• 32:11
  and why they might be struggling to access the same things as I
• 32:14
  definitely had prejudices. My my father definitely had some
• 32:17
  sense of humour issues around things which are completely
• 32:19
  inappropriate in modern modern PC World that we shouldn't be
• 32:22
  saying things like that. So there were definitely little,
• 32:24
  little snipes and jibes and jokes and like opinions that
• 32:28
  that had obviously woven into my consciousness.
• 32:31
  And ultimately I was very unhappy.
• 32:33
  I found it very difficult to relate to people.
• 32:36
  I found it very difficult to not be competitive.
• 32:39
  I found it very difficult to, to work as part of a team.
• 32:42
  I, I was, I was very happy working by myself.
• 32:44
  I could do great things by myself.
• 32:46
  But if I was expected to work as part of a wider thing, I found
• 32:48
  it difficult to communicate and to to collaborate.
• 32:51
  I certainly wasn't thinking for myself.
• 32:53
  I had no awareness of politics. That sounds awful.
• 32:55
  Like I'm literally listening these things as just shocking at
• 32:57
  how disconnected from reality I actually was.
• 33:01
  And that obviously had a massive knock on effect to my
• 33:05
  confidence, my happiness, depression, mental health, like
• 33:09
  my relationships, like actually it really was a massive
• 33:13
  detriment to me. And it's obviously one of the
• 33:15
  main reasons why I have decided to home educate my kids because
• 33:17
  I honestly, genuinely think that I need to have more involvement
• 33:22
  in the messaging they're receiving.
• 33:23
  But just like opportunities, I want to give them more control.
• 33:26
  I really don't want them just blindly following whatever
• 33:28
  information they're given. But what worries me is that when
• 33:33
  you were given a curriculum and you were told this is what we're
• 33:35
  learning about and this is what we're going to achieve from A-Z.
• 33:38
  If that curriculum has not been formed with active inclusion and
• 33:41
  diversity in mind, that means that you and also with the whole
• 33:45
  kind of structure that that idea of competitiveness, that aim to
• 33:48
  try and raise a bunch of labourers to go off and do the
• 33:50
  work that needs to go and be done.
• 33:52
  Because I agree, there is an agenda behind our school system
• 33:54
  and it is doing what it's supposed to do at the end of the
• 33:56
  day. That's why they're not fixing
• 33:57
  it. And we have got to start
• 33:58
  standing up and going, wait a minute, this isn't fair.
• 34:02
  But ultimately we are dealing with a system that is not
• 34:06
  working brilliantly for our children.
• 34:07
  It's not got the individuals in mind.
• 34:10
  It's not got their innovation in mind.
• 34:11
  It's not got their personal development in mind.
• 34:14
  Maybe there are, they're starting to try a little bit
• 34:17
  here and there, but it's ultimately they're they're
• 34:19
  trying to work against the tide. Like it is very difficult for
• 34:22
  for teachers to be helping their kids to embrace some of these
• 34:26
  thoughts and ideals in a world which is definitely going that
• 34:29
  way. Most people you speak to now
• 34:31
  will have these ideals and be starting to be like, no, I don't
• 34:33
  like that messaging. Actually.
• 34:34
  I don't want my kids to be Uber competitive or whatever.
• 34:37
  But they're still sending their kids into an environment where
• 34:39
  that's what they're basically being taught day and night is
• 34:42
  how you're supposed to be. So they're fighting against it.
• 34:45
  And I think that we've got to therefore be a like to kind of
• 34:48
  get into the real nitty gritty of this conversation around
• 34:51
  whitewashing and banned books and the lack of information.
• 34:54
  We've got to start understanding that schools, home educators,
• 34:58
  anybody who's got quite fixed beliefs or values are going to
• 35:01
  find it quite difficult to step outside of that.
• 35:03
  It takes an awful lot of self work and awareness to notice
• 35:06
  where you have got prejudice or you have got judgement going on.
• 35:11
  And if you want, like I I actually do believe that an
• 35:14
  awful lot the home educating community is doing that work or
• 35:16
  they said trying to. But every single time I have a
• 35:20
  conversation with someone about anything to do with this, it
• 35:22
  makes me go, Oh my goodness, I did not realize that.
• 35:24
  That's that thought that I'm having is really not OK.
• 35:27
  Like reading the one about ageism, for example, is making
• 35:30
  me realize how often I prioritize my adult priorities
• 35:33
  over my children's priorities. And actually whatever they want
• 35:36
  from me right now is like, yeah, I know, but this is more
• 35:38
  important because I'm a grown up and it needs to make money or
• 35:40
  whatever. Like, and it's like, Oh no, what
• 35:43
  are they doing? Like it's it's so important to
• 35:46
  keep making asking these questions.
• 35:47
  But I guess what I'd love for to get into now, Chris, is honestly
• 35:52
  how terrible it is for the majority of the, the US
• 35:58
  curriculum, etcetera, to be well, the the the young people
• 36:01
  who are experiencing AUS curriculum right now, how
• 36:04
  limited their understanding of diversity is and what they're
• 36:07
  actually lacking. Like what are they not getting?
• 36:10
  What are they not understanding? Well, it's.
• 36:14
  I mean, that's an excellent question.
• 36:16
  It's such a multifaceted thing. You can look at the lack of
• 36:23
  diversity in education as an as an ongoing problem, as a problem
• 36:28
  that's been there since the beginning, of course, yeah.
• 36:31
  And it seemed. To have as people study it, it
• 36:35
  seems to have gotten a little bit better, but you can't
• 36:40
  understand that in the way our system is set up.
• 36:43
  All of our textbooks for the the majority, like 95% of our
• 36:49
  textbooks are written and developed in Texas.
• 36:54
  And the main curricula in in high schools, middle schools,
• 36:58
  elementary schools are developed from a very mainstream point of
• 37:04
  view. It's rare that diverse
• 37:07
  communities see themselves reflected in the things that
• 37:12
  they study, the things that they learn.
• 37:14
  So you're not seeing a lot of Black faces in textbooks, you're
• 37:18
  not seeing a lot of brown. And more importantly, you're not
• 37:22
  hearing those stories. You're not studying those
• 37:25
  stories, Indigenous people, LGBTQ, you're not hearing the
• 37:31
  stories of those inventors and explorers, Even those authors
• 37:36
  you know, you'll once in a while you'll study, you'll study
• 37:39
  Martin Luther King, you'll study Rosa Parks.
• 37:43
  You may, you know, have a paragraph about Frederick
• 37:48
  Douglass or maybe Malcolm X, but there are so many more stories
• 37:55
  that aren't being told in the in your standard textbook and that
• 38:03
  that affects people from marginalized communities, but
• 38:06
  also from from mainstream or white communities.
• 38:10
  You know, they're not seeing that diversity, they're not
• 38:13
  getting that, that representation.
• 38:16
  So naturally, you know, they think, well, all the most
• 38:20
  important people were these old white men.
• 38:23
  These were our founding fathers. Those were the, you know,
• 38:26
  because that's the, the Eurocentric point of view that
• 38:29
  that's presented. But I always say that the, the
• 38:32
  antidote to, to racism, you know, and, and everybody turn up
• 38:38
  your radios because this is really important.
• 38:39
  This is, this is how to cure racism.
• 38:42
  The antidote to racism is travel is going outside your comfort
• 38:47
  zone and seeing other cultures, seeing other people, seeing
• 38:53
  other other things. And then it's really hard to,
• 38:57
  unless you're, you know, really, really doubling down on it.
• 39:01
  It's hard to be a racist after you've went out and seen the
• 39:04
  world. I think what what?
• 39:06
  Is important to add to that though, is, is going out and
• 39:09
  seeing the world is, is one thing.
• 39:10
  But I remember for example, driving through Sri Lanka when I
• 39:14
  was probably about 2021, something like that, and seeing
• 39:18
  these small tribal communities of people who are like very,
• 39:22
  very small little communities that literally they'd have.
• 39:25
  The only thing that community did was harvest one particular
• 39:29
  kind of fruit and sell it at the side of the road that that
• 39:31
  entire community was based on. They all worked in that area on
• 39:35
  harvesting that fruit. They all sold it at the side of
• 39:37
  the road and some of them took it off to bigger markets.
• 39:40
  And that was that money was then shared to support their
• 39:42
  community and they, they took care of each other.
• 39:43
  And what is very important to, to remember when you're looking
• 39:48
  at these situations, there is, is sometimes that actually it
• 39:50
  almost builds on racism as well, because it creates this sense of
• 39:55
  superiority. And like with all of our
• 39:57
  technology and all of our big buildings and all of our
• 39:59
  healthcare and our access to education, all these things like
• 40:03
  that. Without support to think
• 40:05
  critically in these situations or to to notice the beauty or to
• 40:09
  recognize the simplicity of that life and how lovely that is that
• 40:12
  actually they're they're getting to just be with the real natural
• 40:15
  instincts of being human to live on the earth to to forage and
• 40:19
  feed their families to to make just enough money to to get what
• 40:22
  their community needs to keep going And that their limitation.
• 40:26
  Well, probably their limited access to disease and hardship
• 40:29
  and horror from the world around and like there's an awful lot of
• 40:32
  beauty there. But without having that really
• 40:35
  critical conversation and to to be able to actually see things
• 40:39
  from a different perspective, to have the skill to be able to do
• 40:41
  that. A child might look at that and
• 40:44
  just think, oh gosh, that looks awful.
• 40:46
  Like where's their Xbox? Where's their school?
• 40:48
  Like where's all their like amazing suites and stuff?
• 40:51
  Sure. We just.
• 40:52
  Look at it through through our lens.
• 40:54
  Yeah, like the, the, the. Experience that they've had and
• 40:56
  and what they are used to and they think that that person is
• 40:59
  lacking, but you put you hit the nail.
• 41:01
  On the head with critical thinking, if you don't enable
• 41:07
  your critical thinking switch to turn on when you're, when you're
• 41:11
  out exploring. And and that's, that's the skill
• 41:15
  that you have to teach that we have to teach our kids more than
• 41:19
  anything, it's, it's about critical thinking, yeah.
• 41:23
  And asking our children. To challenge things because
• 41:26
  ultimately they will asking questions.
• 41:28
  Yeah, because I think a lot. Of the time if if a child is
• 41:32
  being taught a curriculum and if they try to deviate from it,
• 41:35
  they're told Nate we're learning about this right now and they
• 41:38
  ask a question to challenge the teacher and they're told no,
• 41:41
  we're not talking about that in class like I'll talk to you
• 41:43
  about it later or whatever it might be then there's there's a
• 41:47
  lot of these moments that we're basically asking children to not
• 41:50
  ask questions and to I know I sound like I'm being really like
• 41:53
  hard and harsh right now no, but I mean that's.
• 41:56
  That's what the educational systems is based on.
• 41:59
  We're we're teaching them not to ask questions, but to follow
• 42:03
  directions. Just do what I say.
• 42:05
  Just here's the information that you need.
• 42:07
  You don't need to think further into it.
• 42:10
  You don't need to think critically about it.
• 42:13
  Yeah. Right.
• 42:14
  Just just learn this, pass the test, and then you can learn
• 42:16
  some more in your own time if you want to go into it in any
• 42:19
  more. Depth and obviously you have no
• 42:20
  free. Time so clearly you're not going
• 42:22
  to do that in your free time because you'd rather play a
• 42:23
  video game, right. But I think this is what we have
• 42:25
  to be really conscious of. And I think, you know, when I
• 42:29
  speak to my kids about stuff and I I I'm reading some books with
• 42:32
  them at the minute in preparation for this series.
• 42:34
  And there have been some very hard hitting moments and bits
• 42:36
  that have made me go. Don't really want to be talking
• 42:38
  to my kids about this. Like it feels a little bit too
• 42:40
  deep or a bit too dark or a bit too scary.
• 42:43
  And actually, I don't want them to form this as part of their
• 42:46
  values. I don't want them to to become
• 42:48
  like this person. But they it's not that they
• 42:51
  surprise me because I know they're wonderful people, but
• 42:53
  nine times out of 10, their reflections on it are them
• 42:58
  going. I don't like how that person
• 43:00
  spoke to that person or I don't I don't like that that's how
• 43:03
  they treat each other Or in a book we're reading the minute
• 43:05
  where all the kids are like super competitive in the school
• 43:07
  and everything I said, do you ever compare yourself to your
• 43:09
  friends? And they're like, no, I don't
• 43:11
  care if they can read. I don't care if they can run
• 43:14
  with, they're just my friends. I just like them for who they
• 43:16
  are and what they can do. I'm interested in them like I
• 43:18
  don't. They don't have to be like me.
• 43:20
  Isn't that? Isn't that kind of?
• 43:21
  Refreshing. Doesn't that kind of give you
• 43:23
  some optimism that the younger generation is actually not
• 43:26
  buying into the BS that we've that we've bought into and that
• 43:31
  we're trying to shovel, you know, through our society?
• 43:34
  You know, the only thing that gives me hope is the fact that,
• 43:38
  you know, my, my 17 year old and my 21 year old aren't afraid to
• 43:43
  call me out on my BS. You know, they aren't afraid to
• 43:46
  say, you know what? That's, that's not the way.
• 43:49
  And I think that we don't agree with you, you know.
• 43:51
  The next generation. They're actually going to do.
• 43:54
  They're actually going to do. OK, I hope so.
• 43:57
  I hope so, but I think that's the the real risk with this is
• 44:00
  that if we're not having the conversation with them, then who
• 44:03
  is? And, and, and I think there's an
• 44:06
  awful lot that we need to be worried about.
• 44:08
  I mean, we mentioned briefly the concept of banned books.
• 44:10
  Now I did a very, kind of very short post about kind of like
• 44:13
  there's no such thing as banned books in our home education that
• 44:17
  I'm going to challenge myself to whatever book I come across that
• 44:21
  I maybe full reservations about reading with my kids.
• 44:24
  To consider why I'm having reservations about that and to
• 44:27
  maybe read it and to feel uncomfortable whilst we're
• 44:29
  reading it and to have those really difficult conversations
• 44:31
  about why it makes us feel uncomfortable.
• 44:33
  And quite a lot of people were like, what's the banned book?
• 44:35
  What do you mean? And what is quite scary, I think
• 44:38
  is actually how little some parents actually are aware of
• 44:42
  the powers that be that are going on behind closed doors in
• 44:45
  terms of dictating the messaging that their children are
• 44:48
  receiving and won't stop and question it because they're too
• 44:50
  busy and desperately just trying to keep a roof above heads and
• 44:54
  keep everybody fed and watered and off to the next thing that I
• 44:56
  appreciate that it can take an awful lot of critical thought to
• 45:00
  be like, OK, what are my children learning?
• 45:02
  What exactly is on the curriculum?
• 45:04
  Like when will they cover this? Like how deeply will they cover
• 45:08
  this? What people will they learn from
• 45:10
  in history and and what what are they missing?
• 45:12
  And to have that awareness of the curriculum as well, like
• 45:15
  most parents just don't they, they won't, they have no real
• 45:18
  reason to stop and look at it that closely beyond like
• 45:21
  obviously if they care about making sure their kids have got
• 45:23
  other perspectives. But there are a lot of books
• 45:26
  that are not used in schools or are taken out of libraries or
• 45:32
  are not discussed because of a million different reasons.
• 45:34
  Obviously not just race, but there's it is shocking that that
• 45:38
  we basically have decided that we're not going to trust young
• 45:40
  people to have their own discernment to to read a book,
• 45:45
  to make their own decisions and. Make up their own mind.
• 45:48
  About how they feel about it based on their values, and I
• 45:50
  guess that's because they don't believe that they've done a good
• 45:52
  enough job of giving them that skill.
• 45:54
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 45:56
  And it's again, it's by design you.
• 46:00
  Know we have. We have an epidemic of people
• 46:04
  banning books that they've never read.
• 46:07
  You know, people you know, deciding what should go into a
• 46:10
  library when they haven't stepped foot in a library since
• 46:14
  they were in elementary school and.
• 46:17
  It's it's. Really ridiculous.
• 46:20
  And yeah, it's not just about race.
• 46:21
  It's, it's, it's so many other things that an, an idea in a
• 46:26
  book, you know, people are so afraid of that, that they're
• 46:30
  just like, well, there's no way that my, you know,
• 46:34
  impressionable teenager should be exposed to the idea of, you
• 46:40
  know, what would be an Anne Frank's diary, for example.
• 46:43
  Are these some of the things? That you, when you talk about
• 46:46
  the hybrid approach to schooling and what you're working with
• 46:49
  these diverse families to supplement in a homeschool
• 46:53
  environment, a home learning environment, are, are these some
• 46:55
  of the things that you're talking about?
• 46:57
  You're talking about banned books?
• 46:58
  Is it, is it sort of having this look at what's important to the
• 47:02
  family and then focusing on that or are there some very
• 47:05
  prescriptive approaches that you're taking?
• 47:07
  What, what does that look like? No, the reason I.
• 47:10
  Exist is to get more people to read banned books.
• 47:13
  My youngest child brought home a huge box of books from from
• 47:20
  their high school one day and I was like, what what's going on
• 47:23
  with that? And they were like, these are
• 47:25
  books that the library was just going to toss out, not because
• 47:29
  they're banned, but because the school board might look at them
• 47:37
  and ban them one day. So they were preemptively taking
• 47:41
  them off the shelves of the library.
• 47:43
  And that's the chilling effect that banning books is having on,
• 47:49
  you know, in classrooms and in libraries around the country.
• 47:52
  And, you know, last is it last week was banned book week,
• 47:56
  Banned books week here, here in the States.
• 48:00
  And yeah, it's just, and it's not a problem that's going away.
• 48:03
  It's a problem that, you know, is just intensifying and getting
• 48:07
  worse because people aren't talking about it and people, you
• 48:10
  know, because there's so much other stuff, unfortunately, to
• 48:15
  talk about. But yes, people are still
• 48:18
  banning books. And in fact, the 1st in in the
• 48:21
  book homeschool remix, the first appendix appendix is a list of
• 48:27
  78, I believe banned books that that I think parents should at
• 48:32
  least consider sharing with with their kids.
• 48:36
  I'm a big proponent of letting kids read and make decisions
• 48:43
  about a book has never turned you gay.
• 48:48
  I know a book has. Never, you know, it's it's the
• 48:52
  book. Is the closest.
• 48:54
  Thing to travel that that we have if you can't send your kid
• 48:59
  to to you know a place around the world give them a book and
• 49:03
  let them learn about those people Yeah well and it's going.
• 49:06
  To it's going to have this equity approach too, if you can
• 49:10
  really read across the spectrum of books.
• 49:12
  So obviously if you want your kids to build empathy, if you
• 49:16
  want them to have a very literature based education,
• 49:18
  which I know is something I I value books so much.
• 49:21
  It's a core to what we do in our home school from everything,
• 49:25
  science, history, there's, there's a book that we're
• 49:28
  reading every time. And so I think when you take
• 49:32
  away these culturally rich books.
• 49:35
  That are written by. Different perspectives,
• 49:38
  different cultures. The the authors that are not
• 49:41
  look like us, like me and my kids.
• 49:43
  I that's where I mean, I enjoy it, they enjoy it.
• 49:46
  I just I can't understand when people think.
• 49:50
  This book is going. To suddenly influence my child
• 49:53
  to make a drastic deviation from what I'm anticipating.
• 49:56
  Like it's, it's, it's just going to make them more aware and
• 49:59
  hopefully build their empathy and experiences.
• 50:02
  Yeah. And I.
• 50:03
  Think it's it's. More important than ever when
• 50:06
  we're in such diverse communities anyway.
• 50:08
  But I mean, I do an awful lot of work in sort of send acceptance
• 50:11
  and neuro divergent acceptance and inclusion within businesses
• 50:14
  and in families and helping people to understand how how
• 50:19
  brilliant a home educated experience can be for a neuro
• 50:21
  divergent child to give some opportunities to be more
• 50:23
  individual in themselves and to meet their own needs, etcetera.
• 50:25
  And there is still, there's always going to be so much
• 50:28
  prejudice around things like that as well.
• 50:30
  I mean, it's everywhere. The the real reason why we have
• 50:32
  a lot of these prejudices, I think, and the reason why we
• 50:34
  really struggle with it is because people don't have the
• 50:37
  time or the energy to put themselves in somebody else's
• 50:39
  shoes. Actually, they have been mostly
• 50:41
  taught by our society that the goal is to be judge mental.
• 50:45
  It's to be critical to one up yourself over somebody else to
• 50:49
  believe that your education makes you better than someone or
• 50:52
  your job and your wealth makes you better than someone or your
• 50:55
  your physical size or shape makes you better than someone.
• 50:58
  The neatness and tidiness makes you better than someone.
• 51:00
  So we are very aware and, and most people will be very aware
• 51:04
  in their communities that actually they are in this
• 51:06
  constant game of 1 upmanship. And again, the homeland
• 51:11
  community is, is determined to be separate to that in a lot of
• 51:15
  ways. Like we certainly don't sit
• 51:16
  around judging each other for being scruffy or like none of us
• 51:19
  care particularly about like, oh, you used to be a teacher or
• 51:22
  you used to be a university professor or like none of us
• 51:25
  asks each other stuff like that. We like, we care about each
• 51:27
  other in terms of interest. We're not doing it to like, oh,
• 51:29
  well, they must be a great home educator because they've got
• 51:31
  they used to be a teacher. Like we didn't think like that.
• 51:34
  And actually we all support each other really well.
• 51:36
  But I think what is important to be aware of is, is that
• 51:39
  actually, so this is another kind of element to this
• 51:41
  conversation. I'm conscious of time is that we
• 51:44
  we have got an awful lot of people who maybe wants to home
• 51:47
  educate or maybe have seen home education and would maybe
• 51:50
  consider it as an option. But they know from their
• 51:53
  experience with local authorities or with the schools
• 51:55
  that their kids go to or just the public in general, or the
• 51:59
  the racism or prejudice that they have experienced in life
• 52:02
  that the accessibility to it is, is very different.
• 52:04
  And I think this is something else I really want to almost
• 52:07
  call home educators into arms for a little bit is to be a
• 52:10
  little bit more aware that there's a reason why the
• 52:12
  community is so white. And it's not because we are
• 52:17
  necessarily being exclusive and we're stopping anybody from else
• 52:20
  wanting to do it. But it's the stigmas and the
• 52:22
  prejudice that's attached to it that they, everyone believes
• 52:24
  that you've got to be of a certain wealth or whatever to be
• 52:28
  able to do it, which is something which we battle a lot
• 52:31
  as well. I mean, we are a, a 1 1/2 income
• 52:33
  family. We've made an awful lot of
• 52:35
  sacrifices. We don't eat out like our kids
• 52:37
  do, limited paid for extracurriculars.
• 52:39
  Like we have to be very careful with our money.
• 52:42
  We haven't been able to get as big a house as some of my sort
• 52:45
  of friends or whatever might have done if they're both
• 52:48
  getting a full time income. No, we have had to make some
• 52:50
  sacrifices to be able to achieve this.
• 52:52
  And so ultimately, it doesn't always look as beautiful on the
• 52:55
  outside as it does people think it does.
• 52:57
  There's that to consider as well.
• 52:58
  But there is a reason why a lot of people will struggle to feel
• 53:03
  like I was terrified of the local authority, terrified of
• 53:06
  social services. I was convinced that I was going
• 53:08
  to be like, I was being really rebellious, that I was going to
• 53:10
  be getting into loads of trouble if I chose to home educate.
• 53:13
  And I know that from a community which is already experiencing an
• 53:18
  an extreme extra level of prejudice for a minority reason
• 53:21
  in whatever capacity that is, they're going to really struggle
• 53:25
  to to choose to put themselves in further persecution.
• 53:30
  Like they're they're not going to want to rock the boat any
• 53:32
  more than they absolutely have to.
• 53:34
  And are really going to almost through want of survival, will
• 53:39
  want to assimilate more because they're not going to want to be
• 53:43
  stood out as different or they're not going to want to
• 53:45
  kind of other themselves any more than they've already been
• 53:48
  othered by the community as a whole.
• 53:50
  I guess is I was trying to explain this and that's where it
• 53:53
  wasn't began. But like it's like if you
• 53:54
  already feel othered, you don't want to other yourself an even
• 53:57
  more yeah, you don't want to add to.
• 53:59
  It yeah like keep adding more othering.
• 54:00
  And eventually you feel ostracized.
• 54:02
  And I think we want like, I really want to say as a home
• 54:05
  educating parent that we absolutely want more diversity
• 54:08
  in our communities. You would always be incredibly
• 54:10
  welcome to come and join in with everything that we are doing.
• 54:13
  But it's, it's hard to get them to anybody to understand, I
• 54:16
  guess that it's safe that it's OK that, and, and I can't even
• 54:22
  promise that because I don't even know what they might end up
• 54:25
  going through and how different it might be for them compared to
• 54:28
  us. And the way that we would,
• 54:30
  might, maybe be looked at for our lived situation and, and how
• 54:34
  people would. And it's, it's really hard to
• 54:37
  know that today that there's so many people out there who'll be
• 54:39
  experiencing that prejudice. And we don't even understand
• 54:41
  what they'll have even gone through in order to be able to
• 54:44
  choose that and to have the same freedoms that we've been able to
• 54:48
  choose easier. It's, and I think that's where
• 54:51
  it's so important to have to be thinking about this because it's
• 54:53
  not fair. And it's, it's just crazy to me
• 54:57
  anyway. I can't honestly believe the
• 54:59
  level of prejudice that some people will experience for
• 55:03
  choosing something for their family.
• 55:04
  That's a completely legal and viable choice, right, Right.
• 55:08
  It's like, there's nothing wrong with it.
• 55:10
  You're allowed to do it. It's it's a logical.
• 55:12
  Choice. Yeah, You know, really, I get, I
• 55:15
  get so much pushback from from other black families and brown
• 55:21
  families because they think that, well, you know, we our
• 55:26
  people don't homeschool. We can't, we can't afford to do
• 55:28
  that. But nothing could be further
• 55:31
  from the truth. Now, homeschooling can be
• 55:35
  expensive, but it doesn't have to be expensive and it doesn't
• 55:40
  have to be out of reach of, of families.
• 55:44
  And that's one of one of my philosophies is I, I like to say
• 55:49
  we practice folding chair homeschooling.
• 55:52
  That comes from a quote by Shirley Chisholm.
• 55:55
  If they don't have a seat for you at the table, bring a
• 55:58
  folding chair. And the philosophy is that you
• 56:04
  can find resources that are free or low cost, find and adapt
• 56:13
  lesson plans and curriculum that are out there.
• 56:17
  Yeah. And and make your own
• 56:20
  homeschooling curriculum. Yeah, you can.
• 56:24
  Do that. And not have to spend a whole
• 56:27
  lot of money. And it's, it's a challenge, but
• 56:32
  people are doing it. And there's no reason why you as
• 56:35
  a family can't do that. And that's, I guess that's, if I
• 56:39
  have a mission, that's my mission is to tell people, hey,
• 56:42
  there is a way. We have a community.
• 56:44
  If you go to homeschoolremix.com, you can,
• 56:47
  you know, join our community. We, we call it the Seat squad.
• 56:51
  It's about supporting, educating, adapting and
• 56:54
  thriving. It's about coming together as a
• 56:56
  community, sharing lessons, sharing curricula,
• 57:00
  recommendations and resources and, and things like that.
• 57:03
  Just find somebody you can, you can, you know, share with
• 57:07
  because homeschooling by yourself, you, you probably know
• 57:10
  this, it, it will cause you to burn out quickly.
• 57:15
  If you're, if you're doing it alone, it, you know, the first
• 57:19
  couple of of weeks or couple of months, you're like, you're
• 57:22
  going at it. You have a schedule, you have,
• 57:24
  you know, all your plans, and then life happens.
• 57:28
  Yeah. You know, Yeah.
• 57:30
  It doesn't always work out the way they're going to work out.
• 57:33
  No. Especially when.
• 57:34
  You're dealing with children who've got school trauma and
• 57:37
  sure, it's just access learning in more traditional and they say
• 57:40
  traditional and there's so much. Trauma.
• 57:42
  There's so much trauma going around.
• 57:45
  You know, young people are going through so much.
• 57:49
  And we, as parents, we also bring our trauma to the table as
• 57:53
  well. Yeah, that we're working.
• 57:55
  Through as well. And I think yeah, we've there's
• 57:57
  so much we could sort of talk around all of this really.
• 58:00
  And I think it's it's really lovely to hear that you are
• 58:04
  working with families who are feeling like this is crazy.
• 58:07
  We can't do that. Like that's just not going to
• 58:09
  happen. And the more of us who are out
• 58:10
  there sort of saying no really it's OK like I know it's scary,
• 58:14
  but it like we've got you that we've got your back that you
• 58:16
  don't have to do this alone. I know that there's, there's
• 58:18
  some pushback in the home educating community around
• 58:22
  individuals like yourself, like me, who are out there trying to
• 58:27
  provide coaching or mentoring or consulting and support for the
• 58:31
  community. Um, that, that is kind of
• 58:34
  concept of like, oh, just come along to the meetups and you'll
• 58:36
  just learn everything you need to know.
• 58:37
  And it's like somewhat yes, but ultimately it can be incredibly
• 58:41
  difficult to find your people. It can find, it can be very
• 58:44
  difficult to find the right resources quickly, to feel
• 58:47
  reassured quickly to like. And, and you do have to be
• 58:50
  reassured relatively quickly because a lot of the time
• 58:53
  parents are making decisions to home educate currently in the
• 58:55
  climate of a child not OK at school.
• 58:57
  Like whether that's through bullying, death threats, like
• 59:01
  the suddenly kind of massive breakdown of communication with
• 59:03
  the teachers, mental health, Yeah, all kinds of things that
• 59:07
  these these children are dealing with.
• 59:08
  And parents are having to make this choice not out of
• 59:11
  necessarily a joyful like life choice.
• 59:13
  They're having to go no way. OK, this is bad.
• 59:16
  We've got to help them now quick because we've only got so many
• 59:19
  years before they're off trying to be grown-ups and living their
• 59:21
  lives. And we need to help them now.
• 59:24
  And ultimately that means that people are they need support
• 59:26
  really quickly. And so one thing I would love
• 59:29
  again to call on the prejudice and that in the home of
• 59:31
  community is to understand that those of us who've got the
• 59:33
  ability to offer guidance and support are not doing so as
• 59:39
  profiteering evil people like we are like 99% of what I do is for
• 59:46
  free. There's podcast I earn nothing
• 59:48
  from like the, the millions of people I talk to every year just
• 59:51
  just to chat to you on social media, in person, at meetups,
• 59:54
  groups in my local community. Like I don't charge someone for
• 59:57
  having a chat with me at the park, for crying out loud.
• 59:59
  There's an awful lot of community support that's going
• 1:00:01
  on. But communities where people can
• 1:00:03
  come and join in with something where they feel like actually,
• 1:00:05
  these are my people and they're going to get me and they're
• 1:00:07
  going to get my background and my my community and my
• 1:00:09
  experience. They're going to understand why
• 1:00:11
  I've got my hang ups that I do what I'm really scared of.
• 1:00:14
  I don't have to explain all of that to them.
• 1:00:16
  I can just speak to them and understand.
• 1:00:17
  They get it and we just have a conversation.
• 1:00:19
  They give me some ideas and we can move on and and hopefully
• 1:00:22
  all. Gently progress and support each
• 1:00:24
  other to a more active, inclusive world, an educational
• 1:00:27
  system that these places are magical and they're they're
• 1:00:31
  really very useful and I guess it's reassuring.
• 1:00:35
  It's very reassuring to get a perspective from someone who's
• 1:00:38
  gone through it, kind of, you know, connect you with a
• 1:00:40
  community of like families. I, I just, I, yeah, someone
• 1:00:45
  who's been through the same. Thing someone who's already
• 1:00:48
  solved the problems that you're, you know, having or about to
• 1:00:52
  have. Yeah, it's.
• 1:00:54
  Good to find that. I guess I just want.
• 1:00:57
  To kind of like stress that there's definitely stuff that
• 1:00:59
  you guys can be doing to be talking to your kids about this.
• 1:01:03
  Obviously go to your library, have a look through the
• 1:01:06
  collections of books they've got, grab something that they're
• 1:01:08
  interested in. There's no right way or wrong
• 1:01:10
  way to do this really, but we have obviously got some
• 1:01:12
  recommendations for books and things that we're kind of trying
• 1:01:14
  to do alongside this series. One that I'm going to be reading
• 1:01:17
  is is Ghost, which is definitely going to help to understand sort
• 1:01:21
  of socio economic status and how people get others in societies.
• 1:01:25
  And but there's obviously a massive long list of books out
• 1:01:27
  there that we can share with you guys.
• 1:01:28
  I'll put some other options and things in the description on the
• 1:01:32
  episode so you can go and grab some options to to have a go out
• 1:01:34
  with your kids and to read through.
• 1:01:36
  Ultimately, what we want you to understand from these
• 1:01:38
  conversations is that we're not wrong.
• 1:01:41
  We're not failing if we're never thinking about these things
• 1:01:44
  exactly. It's just that life is life and
• 1:01:46
  we get busy and we don't always think about it.
• 1:01:48
  But if we don't, when we get an opportunity to be thoughtful,
• 1:01:52
  we're reading a book to our kids and maybe in a something has
• 1:01:55
  come up in it that we don't agree with or we find addresses
• 1:01:57
  our values or with makes us worry a little bit.
• 1:01:59
  Then actually stop, pause, have a conversation with your kids.
• 1:02:02
  Encourage them to think critically about how they feel
• 1:02:04
  about it. Listen to their opinions, their
• 1:02:07
  ideas of others. Notice if they seem to be
• 1:02:11
  forming any opinions that that are worrying.
• 1:02:14
  Notice the kind of influences they're having and just make
• 1:02:16
  sure that it's not about taking away, but it was that she, me
• 1:02:19
  and Ashley were talking about like this can go the other way
• 1:02:22
  in terms of like being worried about books and and taking
• 1:02:25
  taking them out of their collection because actually we
• 1:02:27
  don't like the language or we don't like the sense of humour
• 1:02:29
  that's being used in it or it's like it's too crass or it's
• 1:02:32
  whatever. And it's like actually being
• 1:02:33
  conscious that OK fine. Like letting your kids just go
• 1:02:38
  and read loads of random books without any kind of insight
• 1:02:41
  discussion sometimes could potentially lead to them kind of
• 1:02:45
  forming ideas or opinions that do need challenging and do need
• 1:02:48
  some discussion around. So do be mindful of what they're
• 1:02:51
  reading and do be mindful of of chiming in a little bit and
• 1:02:54
  knowing what they're reading and and having some conversations
• 1:02:57
  with them about it. Yes, be a responsible.
• 1:02:59
  Parent be a responsible home instructor like encourage them
• 1:03:03
  to. Consider different perspectives
• 1:03:06
  but don't be afraid to I guess is the point.
• 1:03:08
  Like don't be afraid to let them read stuff which maybe would
• 1:03:12
  challenge like your opinions and have those conversations.
• 1:03:16
  Don't be afraid to let your kids challenge you and your ideals
• 1:03:19
  and thoughts and beliefs. Trust them.
• 1:03:22
  Yes, trust is so massive in parenting anyway, but it's when
• 1:03:26
  it comes to these conversations, we do need to trust them that
• 1:03:29
  generation after generation, humans are working to become
• 1:03:33
  more inclusive, aware, accepting, understanding that
• 1:03:36
  humans don't just look like a set cut and paste human.
• 1:03:39
  We we all look so different. And I think that's one of the
• 1:03:41
  things which was in one of the John Holt books, I think is a
• 1:03:43
  concept of the loss of innovation when schooling began.
• 1:03:48
  Because we stopped paying attention to the insights and
• 1:03:50
  opinions of all of these incredible people who are
• 1:03:52
  immigrating from all over the world and bringing their lived
• 1:03:56
  experiences into the products and ideas that have turned into
• 1:04:01
  like the great kind of innovators and inspirations in
• 1:04:04
  those early kind of free US kind of ideals.
• 1:04:08
  And so much of that is being lost by us just not thinking
• 1:04:12
  this stuff's important and and being so uttering in our
• 1:04:15
  behaviour that every single individual with every single
• 1:04:20
  experience they've had has got valuable insight into what the
• 1:04:24
  world looks like from their perspective.
• 1:04:26
  And yeah, it's so, so, so important that we listen to what
• 1:04:30
  they've got to say. And books.
• 1:04:33
  Books are so important. Books are the best weapons in
• 1:04:37
  the world. You probably don't know this
• 1:04:39
  about me. I'm a huge Doctor Who fan.
• 1:04:43
  That's why it's so cool to be talking to someone actually in
• 1:04:45
  the UK right now, because it's yeah, yes, my, my office is
• 1:04:50
  called the TARDIS. That's that's why the, the walls
• 1:04:52
  are blue in my office. I have posters.
• 1:04:55
  You can't see them, but I have posters, Doctor Who posters.
• 1:04:58
  I have a huge stand up of 10 right over there.
• 1:05:02
  I don't know. Oh my goodness, he does this so.
• 1:05:04
  Funny. He was my.
• 1:05:05
  Favorite Doctor Who, to be fair, Yes, yes, mine.
• 1:05:08
  Too. But but yeah, when books are,
• 1:05:13
  you know, in silence in the library, he says that books are,
• 1:05:17
  you know, the best weapons in the world.
• 1:05:20
  And that's so true. And it's because people are are
• 1:05:25
  are able to pass along so much in the way of ideas and
• 1:05:31
  information. And that's why people are trying
• 1:05:35
  to ban them so much. People are trying to silence
• 1:05:38
  that, you know, They're just scared, I guess.
• 1:05:41
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely scared because
• 1:05:44
  they, I mean, if you look at history, you can see what ideas
• 1:05:50
  can do both good and bad, but. I.
• 1:05:54
  Think if you wanted to keep a people subjugated, you would not
• 1:05:59
  want them to get ideas about what people have done as far as
• 1:06:03
  revolution in the past. So you would ban books about
• 1:06:07
  history. You would ban books about
• 1:06:10
  people's cultural identity. You know, you would silence
• 1:06:15
  teachers from talking about their own lived experiences.
• 1:06:20
  You know, those are the things that you would do if you wanted
• 1:06:23
  to keep people down, You know, and parents, they have to, they
• 1:06:27
  have to resist that. Yeah.
• 1:06:29
  And. And we have to do it from a
• 1:06:31
  perspective of not like to, to actually offer them
• 1:06:34
  opportunities to really think for themselves as opposed to,
• 1:06:37
  again, what can also end up happening is that kind of like
• 1:06:40
  alternate radicalization that can happen.
• 1:06:42
  So like we'd be trying to veil away from one form of like, this
• 1:06:45
  is what you should believe. And we end up trying to do the
• 1:06:47
  same in another direction and being very conscious of actually
• 1:06:50
  saying no. Do you know what we all need to
• 1:06:53
  have this ability to look at information represented by the
• 1:06:55
  make a decision about how we feel about it and what we think
• 1:06:58
  is correct and right based on our understanding of the subject
• 1:07:02
  matter and to ask more questions when we don't understand and we
• 1:07:05
  can't make a decision. And ultimately, I think that's,
• 1:07:07
  that's something which is just so important in a world of
• 1:07:10
  information when there's so much information out there now that
• 1:07:13
  we do have to be really mindful of teaching our kids those
• 1:07:16
  skills because it's, it's just valid.
• 1:07:17
  It's so valid in in their potential for their future.
• 1:07:20
  But we do have power as well as individuals.
• 1:07:23
  And if we allow sort of those who we consider to be in power
• 1:07:29
  to dictate what we know and what we ask questions about, then we
• 1:07:33
  do run the risk of basically living living lives that that
• 1:07:38
  benefit them and not us. So it's we need to be made
• 1:07:43
  really mindful of that, that yes, OK, we are a big community.
• 1:07:45
  We're a massive great organization of human beings.
• 1:07:47
  But ultimately we don't all exist to just assimilate in and
• 1:07:51
  to do our part for that community.
• 1:07:53
  We do actually have individual lives that matter.
• 1:07:55
  And an individual life and interest can lead to an
• 1:07:58
  incredible innovation or idea that without that person really
• 1:08:03
  taking the time to really follow their own internal guidance,
• 1:08:06
  they would never reach. So yeah, this has been
• 1:08:08
  incredible and I'm really grateful for you, Chris.
• 1:08:10
  Thank you so much for coming on. It's like 5:00 AM his time.
• 1:08:13
  So we didn't make him do it like I just need to.
• 1:08:17
  We offered him choices. I mean, this is what he went
• 1:08:19
  with. It's crazy, but sure.
• 1:08:20
  You said 2:00 AM or? 5:00 AM, Your choice.
• 1:08:22
  And I was like, OK, I guess five.
• 1:08:24
  No, no, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
• 1:08:26
  You're great. No, no.
• 1:08:30
  Like I. Told you I hell, by the way, I
• 1:08:32
  do mean Tuesday. You said Tuesday, I'm like you
• 1:08:34
  now, like 5 in the morning, like you're jumping on now.
• 1:08:36
  It's like what's what we're doing?
• 1:08:38
  Sorry, I usually have the zombie.
• 1:08:39
  Anyway, so you know, you did say that, yeah.
• 1:08:42
  You know, it's OK well, thank you so much for your time.
• 1:08:46
  And yeah, I'm sure we'll have another conversation down the
• 1:08:49
  line about like the the movies because you're a massive movie
• 1:08:52
  buff as well. And I know that you're yes,
• 1:08:54
  you're finding all the references for home Ed and
• 1:08:55
  movies and stuff, which is really exciting.
• 1:08:57
  So we'll, but we'll have to have that big conversation at some
• 1:08:59
  point as well because I think that'd be really good.
• 1:09:01
  But thanks so much for your time.
• 1:09:02
  We hope you have a happy rest of your day.
• 1:09:04
  You too. Thank you.
• 1:09:12
  You've been listening to. The Big Home Ed Conversations
• 1:09:15
  podcast. Thanks for tuning in.
• 1:09:17
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• 1:09:21
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• 1:09:28
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• 1:09:34
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• 1:09:37
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